Mind Reading
by 123serendipitee
Summary: Based on "Cece Crashes"...we read Nick's mind, as he attempts to read Jess's mind. Plus, a few fun little flashbacks. ;o
1. Chapter 1

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is based on "Cece Crashes", but for those of you following my stories, never fear, I am NOT just skipping over "Naked"...my next story will definitely address some of the fall-out from that episode. ;o)**_

**THANK YOU FOR CONTINUING TO READ! I appreciate your comments! :o) I have a lot of stories simmering on the back burner that I'm excited about, and I promise I'll be veering more into the "romance" spectrum, soon. ;o)**

* * *

**_"DAMMIT, JESS!"_**

It wasn't the first time he'd said it that day, and he was pretty darn sure it wouldn't be the last. He slapped frustrated palms against the steering wheel and white-knuckled it, in effort to keep from punching the dashboard. Where did that damn girl run off to? And _WHY_?

Nick chose to blame Cece. He didn't know why. Had no good reason to. He just somehow felt sure, as sure as anything, that _Cece _was behind the bizarre way that Jess had been acting.

After all, the loft-mates had all fallen into a more easy pattern together, after the wedding. Jess's roommate status had gone up one more notch, and they'd all found a new level of companionship and comfort around each other. Now even Winston barely blinked when she came traipsing through in one of her pajama outfits, sing-muttering to herself, "Tampons, tampons, don't forget the TAMpoooons..." until she could find a pen and paper to write herself a reminder note.

She really just seemed to want to be "one of the guys", and most of the time they reluctantly indulged her...but she still had her completely inept and unconscious moments of being, as Schmidt would say, a "ruiner".

Most notably? the time she'd screwed up the first sex he'd (almost) had in months by completely psyching him out, because she'd walked in on him dancing naked to Jamaican music.

She walked in on him dancing naked to Jamaican music.

She walked in on him dancing naked to Jamaican music.

She walked in on him dancing naked to Jamaican music.

Sometimes he'd just think that thought over and over to himself, the way you worry a sore tooth with your tongue, somehow believing that by exploring the pain you will eventually alleviate it.

It never works with a toothache, and it didn't work with this.

And neither had _her_ "solution", which had been orchestrating things for him to be able to see _her _naked as well. You know. Just to even things out. Yeah. Also ruinous.

AND, by the way, also made it really darn hard to keep thinking of her as "one of the guys".

So that image also worked away at him like a toothache at times, but in this case he made the conscious effort to try NOT to explore that particular memory. Because it just wouldn't do to think about_ Jess_...you know...like _THAT_.

But sometimes he did. And when he did, he cursed Cece for that, too, since the whole thing had apparently been her idea.  
_  
dammit_

He turned down another street, scanning the sidewalks like a frantic dad searching for an errant toddler, and tried to read a mind that he usually, very carefully, avoided trying to read. Looking at the world through Jess's eyes was like staring at the sun for too long. When you were finally forced to look away, you found yourself dizzy and off-kilter. The world tilted a little bit under your feet, and spots swam in front of your eyes.

_" Nick!" She ran into the apartment, slamming the door and calling his name excitedly._

_"Laundry room!" he located himself._

_"NICK!" she rushed in, not even stopping to set down her bags from school. He eyed a pair of what looked like alien antennas waving out of the top of one backpack, and said, "What's up?"_

_"GOOD NEWS! Spencer has a new girlfriend!"_

_He finally looked up to take in her flushed cheeks and her sparkling eyes, to note that yes, this was genuinely happy about this.. "And this is...GOOD news?" he ventured cautiously._

_"OF COURSE!" Jess admonished him, "Why wouldn't it be?"_

_"Tell you what," Nick parried, folding a tshirt, "why don't you tell me why it WOULD be?"_

_"BECAUSE, silly! If Spencer is dating someone new, then that means that I can be glad for him, without being glad for that boyfriend-stealing ho Rochelle, by connection!"_

_"And..." he really was trying to follow her, here, "Why would you be glad for Spencer?"_

_"BECAUSE! If I can be happy for him, being happy with someone else, then that means that I'm happy without him!"_

_"Yeah, but..." Nick stopped and made a face, not even knowing where to begin in pointing out the circular excuse for "logic" involved here._

_"What?" she sounded a little less sure of herself now...a little less happy. "Wouldn't YOU be happy, if you were in my shoes?"_

_"I don't know, Jess," he answered slowly. "I think that if I was in your shoes, it would make me feel even worse to know that Caroline had broken up with her boyfriend, and wanted a new one, but STILL didn't want to get back together with me."_

_Jess's face fell, and he immediately mentally kicked himself. "BUT DON'T LISTEN TO ME!"_

_Her face cleared immediately as she agreed, "WHEW! Yeah! What was I thinking, there for a second, listening to **you**!"_

_He joined her laughter ironically, and slightly resentfully. "Yeah, ok, so what's THAT supposed to mean, Jess?"_

_"Oh, YOU know! You're so bad at this whole break up thing, that if you think something is a bad thing, then it is almost definitely a GOOD one! Ergo, if you're thinking I should be sad, then I can be even more sure that this is HAPPY HAPPY GOOD NEWS!"_

_He tried to form his mouth around a boggled and slightly insulted reply, but was saved by her phone ringing. She whispered, "Thanks Nick, talking things out with you always helps clear my head!" before answering her phone, "CECE! I have the best news!_"


	2. Chapter 2

Yes, it was a terrifyingly beautiful and simple and endlessly convoluted place, Jess's mind...and his innate allergies to optimism and fairy dust kept him from wanting to visit there more often.

But now he kinda wished he had.

Because maybe then he'd know WHAT the hell she could have been thinking when he jokingly bought her those roses, and WHERE the hell she could have thought she was running off to when she jumped out of his car. Lugging a bag full of toilet paper, no less.

Speaking of which, she "doesn't use toilet paper"? The hell? What the hell was THAT supposed to mean? Did it really mean ANYTHING? Maybe, Nick suspected, sometimes Jess's special brand of logic just made no sense in the real world at all.

Take last night, for instance. Jess had received an SOS from a rather drunk and disorderly Cece, and had headed out to save the day, still dressed in her pjs.

Although he supposed at least her Clark Kent glasses were appropriate for day-saving.

But-her idea of safe place to bring a boundary-less, "loose with her body" Cece was _here at the loft with SCHMIDT? _And Winston, who hadn't had sex in four months?

Well, neither had he. But that was a moot point. He usually went for more of the girl-next-door type, so for some reason he seemed immune to Cece's exotic allure most of the time.

But not his roommates. Jess had acted a little annoyed when a spontaneous dance-fest had broken out, but damn, what did she expect from those idiots they lived with? Prance a pretty, drunk girl in front of them, and their response was basically Pavlovian.

So he'd been rather shocked when Jess had just thrown down her stack of pillows, thrown up her hands, and gone to bed.

What kind of sense did that make? Did she trust them all that much? Did she think that Schmidt actually WOULDN'T try to take advantage of Cece's, er, "loose" state?

Well of course, Schmidt hadn't, really, but STILL. Damn Jess, and her always-believing-the-best-of-other-people thing, anyway.

Even when it was true.

Funny that Cece had been the one to originally point that quality out to them, when Nick felt like Cece was more guilty of taking advantage of Jess's innate good-will than anyone.

_"How do I look?" As had become a bit of a tradition around the loft, Jess was standing in front of the couch like an eight year old, demanding that he admire her in her latest outfit._

_Which was nothing any eight year old outside of one of those horrible Glitz Pageants would ever wear._

_He frowned. "Well I had no idea that you were considering launching a second career as a streetwalker, but judging by this outfit, I'm sure it will be a success."_

_Jess looked down from atop impossibly high heels, and smoothed down the front of an impossibly short and sparkly red dress._

_"I KNOW, but it's what Cece brought for me to wear."_

_"To wear WHERE, to go audition at a STRIP CLUB?"_

_"Niiick!" she whined, "We're going out dancing. YOU know...'clubbing', as the kids are calling it these days..." Her "cranky old man" character voice trailed off uncertainly, and she self-consciously tugged up on the slightly loose neckline. He almost...**almost**...wanted to reassure her that she looked beautiful. But to be more accurate, she was looking crazily, impossibly, undeniably HOT. So instead, he frowned again._

_"Clubbing? I didn't know you were into that scene, Jessica Day."_

_"I'M NOT, but Cece..."_

_"Cece..." Nick growled with a knowing eye roll as she continued._

_"...Cece thought I needed to get out and...you know...live a little..." Jess pantomimed some halfhearted dance moves, before trailing off again with a sigh._

_Nick reflected that Jess **had** seemed to be a little on the quiet side lately, and in retrospect he acknowledged that that probably indicated that she'd been valiantly fighting off a funk. But he refused to admit that Cece was a good enough friend to notice that before he did, so instead he grouched, "Tell me this, Jess... is this something that you would ever do for anyone else besides Cece?"_

_"Well, no!" Jess had answered with a pretty little look of surprise. "But I'd do anything for Cece! But Nick..." she continued, with gentle but pointed reproach, "I wasn't asking what you thought about where I was going. I was asking what you thought about how I look. And this is where you do the supportive roommate thing, and tell me that I look great, so that I won't feel completely stupid and out of my league going out with Cece and her friends. So, let's try this again...How do I look?"_

_She looked like a hot Little Red Riding Hood who was almost certainly going to get eaten up by a wolf tonight, Nick grumbled to himself. But, "That dress is about four inches too short, but other than that, you look great," is what he mumbled._

_"THERE, was that so hard?" Jess rolled her eyes, and stalked out of the room on those stupid hooker heels._

_Stalked out with surprisingly fluid grace, Nick couldn't help but notice...and since her back was turned Nick took in the view from behind, marveling at the never-ending surprise that was Jessica Day, this time proving herself to be quite QUITE up to the challenge of holding her own amongst a group of hot models out for a night on the town._

**_ DAMN CECE._**


	3. Chapter 3

For some reason he'd felt crankily protective of her over breakfast that morning. Certainly he'd never objected to Jess's fondness for "taking care of them" before, especially when it involved eggs cooked just the way he liked them, as she magically seemed able to do.

But this morning he'd found himself aggravated by her very niceness, and the fact that they all seemed to take it for granted.

Funny how he'd never noticed it until CECE was the one taking it for granted. But that was beside the point. In that moment, he hadn't wanted to take part in it, and damn if the high and holier-than-thou road hadn't temporarily felt good.

Of course, the proximity of a naked Cece in the shower had knocked him right off the high road and down to the bottom of the hill again, but come on, he did have a penis, after all.

Or as Jess would say...a bing bong and chickadees.

"Dammit Jess!" he ran a hand down his face, and contemplated the ways he would kill her once he finally found her and made sure she was safe.

He wasn't even sure why he was so worried about her. But there was just something about the way she'd been acting that morning, ever since she and Cece had been holed up in her room. Something vulnerable and uneasy in her eyes that was totally different from the ease and even playfulness that had developed between them lately. Something that FOR ONCE he was pretty sure he wasn't the cause of.

But just to make sure, he mentally reviewed the morning for at least the tenth time.

Breakfast...yeah, he'd yelled at her to stop being so nice, but when she'd responded with one of her nonsensical "your mother" jokes, she'd still seemed perfectly, incoherently normal.

The moment in the bathroom...she'd been disappointed in him, but that wasn't by far a first.

Yep, the weirdness had definitely started after Cece had gotten a hold of her. Looking back, she'd been the one pushing Jess to go to the damn drugstore with him to begin with. Which made no sense now, since as far as he could tell, no personal items of a feminine nature were acquired on the trip, unless Jess was a shop-lifter.

Maybe that was it, he boggled blurrily, as he tried to explore every possible explanation for Jess's bizarre behavior. Maybe she needed something that she was too embarrassed to pick up in front of him, and it had turned her into a gibbering wreck.

It was a stretch for the girl who went around the loft singing about tampons, but then, this was also the girl who had developed an alarm system to let them know when she needed privacy in the bathroom, so again, who could fathom the inner workings of her mind. Personal boundaries were sometimes a fuzzy issue in Jess's world.

_He walked into the living room, still ruffle-drying his hair, and didn't pay much attention to Jess. She was laying back on the couch with her feet in the air, giggling like a school girl with whoever was on the other end of the phone, looking and sounding for all the world like a teenager talking to her best girlfriend about her latest crush._

_"And the way he makes that funny little face when he's upset...YES! that one!" she dissolved into giggles at the description proferred by the person on the other end on the phone, "If he only knew how hard it is to take him seriously when he makes that face!"_

_Nick had strung the towel around his neck and was popping open a beer when he heard the suspiciously familiar words that made him freeze in his tracks. "Yes, absolutely, I agree, he's way too thin. Trust me, I'm doing my best to try to fatten him up some, but you should have heard the hullabaloo when I made blueberry pancakes the other day..."_

_Nick by now had rushed frantically into the living room, and was trying to snatch the phone from Jess, who was waving him off as she shook with silent laughter at the person on the other end.._

_"No, I have no idea why he didn't tell you about me! But you've got my number now, right? Ok...ok...because...Mrs. Miller? Mrs. Miller, he's out of the shower now, let me give him the phone..."_

_"Hey, MA! Listen, Ma, throw that number away! Never call that number! Yes, she's a very nice girl, but she has conversational Tourettes. Yeah...no...It's a thing, Ma...she blurts out entire conversations without having any idea what she's saying. No, she's not dangerous, Ma, but...yes...yes...well, whether or not I could do worse than a very nice girl with conversational Tourettes is debatable..." He mouthed in Jess's direction, "I am going to KILL you!" while she just grinned._

_That had definitely called for another powwow about boundaries, but she never did see his point. The phone rang while he was in the shower, it was his Ma, and she thought it might be an emergency. It made perfect sense to her. She acted like he should thank her..._


	4. Chapter 4

_So in retrospect, scratch personal privacy issues off the list_, Nick concluded. And he returned to attempting to decipher the earlier events of the day.

Jess had seemed preoccupied and antsy between the loft and the car, but he hadn't taken much notice of it, lost in his own grumpy thoughts. Once in the car, he'd popped in a burned cd of some random indie punk-a-billy band that some guy at the bar had left for him in lieu of a tip. That would have been more annoying if it hadn't turned out to be such a good cd, and he and Jess liked to rock out to it together quite frequently in the car. Playing it now served the double purpose of relaxing her, and avoiding the need to conversate, since he realized that he was probably being a little unreasonable about the whole Cece thing, but it just wasn't sitting well with him for some reason.

So it didn't come up again until they were walking into the drugstore, and looking back, that was also when Jess's usual quirkiness just started skidding off the charts, what with the strange circle she kept running around him, and the way she was acting like she was looking for the answers to a mystery, and all.

It was so bizarre, even for Jess, that he'd finally just stopped trying to figure her out, and had wrapped up the errand as quickly as possible. But then things had really gotten weird in the car on the drive home, with her babbling about the way he said her name, and the way he DRESSED, for gawd's sake. What was all that even about?

Extreme moodiness and sensitivity...hot flashes...crazy emotional impulses...those would all definitely support the "that time of the month" theory. Suddenly exhausted with the whole thing, he decided just to stop thinking, and run with that.

Plus blaming Cece. He wasn't going to let _that _go.

* * *

After all his worrying and driving around for an hour, he was insanely relieved, but beyond irritated, to walk into the loft and see that Jess was already there, and had been for who knows how long.

She was still acting bizarrely uncomfortable with him, and while he was more confused than ever, Cece was lurking around behind her looking smug and knowing.

And that just pissed him off even more.

He refused to even look Cece's way, knowing that if he did he'd just end up saying something he regretted. Ok, well, he probably wouldn't regret it...but it would make Jess mad, which would just make his life even more miserable, and so okay yeah, maybe he _would _be beaten into regretting it after all.

So he did his best to ignore Cece's smirk hovering in the background, said his piece, stomped off to his bedroom, and turned a deaf ear to the fact that he'd obviously left the girls arguing, in his wake.

NOPE, Nick Miller had given way too many a damn already that day, and so he was determined not to give a one now. Not even when strangely orgasmic noises permeated his walls, followed by Cece yelling, "I'm trying to help you!", and, shortly thereafter, a shriek from the direction of the roof.

Yep. _ Cece_. The loft was getting crazier by the minute, and he wasn't sure how or why, but it all came back to Cece.

He was sure of it.


	5. Chapter 5

Nick's dinner that night would consist of the first can o' crap he reached up and pulled down from the cupboard. His boiling rage had settled down to a slow simmer, mostly out of sheer exhaustion.

The girls had gone out to eat, and to pick up a few things from Cece's, and the apartment had been much quieter since they left. Even Schmidt had been subdued since Jess had coaxed him down off the roof, and he walked in now to grab some chilled aloe vera out of the fridge. But after closing the door, he just leaned against it for awhile, absently watching Nick stir his Chef Boyardee, but too lost in thought to offer any disparaging comments on it.

Unusual enough behavior to make Nick finally ask, "What up, Schmidt?"

"Just thinking..." Schmidt let a few more seconds pass before adding, "You know, I really do like Jess."

Nick turned around to raise an eyebrow at him, and Schmidt hastened to add, "_Not like that_! Just...she's a nice girl, that's all. Underneath all the crazy. She's really sweet."

Nick wished he could argue that point, but since he'd already reached that conclusion himself, the best he could do was refuse to respond at all, and just act really absorbed in turning off the burner and getting a spoon out of the drawer.

Schmidt was paying enough attention now to say, "Don't tell me you're going to...ARE YOU SERIOUS? How many times have I told you, NEVER eat directly from the pan! You realize, that is my oatmeal pan, right? I make my oatmeal in that in the mornings!" Schmidt was gagging a little when Jess walked in, a few shopping bags in her hands.

"Is that smell what I think it is? BEEFARONI? I used to eat that every day when I got home from school!"

Nick offered her a bite from his spoon, just for the twisted enjoyment of grossing Schmidt out even further. So it was just a bonus when she unquestioningly ate right after him, and he smirked at a now-wretching Schmidt, while asking with concentrated casualness, "So, Cece's moving in now, huh?"

"NO, silly," she chastised him. "It's just for another day or two, until we can find another landing place for DJ Dia-beat-it."

Nick turtle-faced her, but asked no questions. Once again, he was finding it easier not to even try to enter her world. He did offer her another bite, however.

She took it with an appreciative, "Mmmmm!", and, done putting away her groceries, swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, nodded at the soothing gel in Schmidt's hands and said, "Want me to rub that on your sunburn?"

"Naw, I got it," Schmidt answered. "It's mostly my chest, so I can do it myself."

Jess bopped back out again with an, "Ok, if you're sure!", leaving Nick with the spoon frozen halfway to his mouth, as he stared disbelievingly at Schmidt.

"WHAT?"

"You just passed on a cute girl rubbing you down with lotion!" Nick said wonderingly.

"Ok, it was JESS! And I already told you, I like her, but not like that!"

"So let me get this straight," Nick marveled skeptically, "YOU...like a girl...just for herself...as a _person_...not based on anything sexual."

"Yeah," Schmidt shrugged. As if that _wasn't _indicative of some kind of unprecedented character growth on his part.

Nick just stretched his eyes wide, and took another bite of beefaroni. Things were changing faster than he could keep up with, around here, and he was forced to contemplate, not for the first time, that maybe not every change since Jess had been around had been a bad one.

Oh, she was nuts. And she could undoubtedly drive you completely insane.

But she _was_ really sweet. And she had a way of...oh..._getting under your skin_...that couldn't be denied.

Plus she wasn't afraid to eat off his spoon after him, which was more than he could say for Schmidt or Winston.

* * *

So when he ran into her in the bathroom later that night, he was already predisposed to just letting the weird events of the morning slide, chalking it up to just another day with Jess.

Still, when she apologized, it was nice. It was always reassuring to know that sometimes she actually REALIZED that she was nuts.

It was reassuring enough that he couldn't resist swapping secret smiles with her as they brushed their teeth, wordlessly acknowledging the craziness of the day.

Not that any of it was making any more sense to Nick. And Cece was still around, making her take-charge presence known throughout the loft. But none of it seemed to matter much anymore, because Jess was Jess, with her great big heart, and her sketchy sense of boundaries, and her need to mother everyone, and the rose-colored glitter glasses that she saw the world through, and she was smiling at him again. That smile that always made it impossible for him to stay mad at her, even when he really wanted to. And he'd been planning to give her the cold shoulder for at least three days this time, too, dangit.  
_  
__**Dammit, Jess.**_


End file.
